CINCINNATI \u2014 Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow confirmed on Tuesday that he\u2019ll be returning on Thanksgiving night to start against the Baltimore Ravens.<\/p>\n
Burrow had surgery to repair a turf toe injury on Sept. 19, and is making his return nearly a full month ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe pushed it within the limits of what we could do, and kind of just based it on how I was feeling, how I was recovering, how it looked the next day after we pushed it, and just went from there,\u201d said Burrow, who missed nine games.<\/p>\n
Burrow returns to a 3-8 Bengals team that has dropped four straight and is tied for last place in the AFC North. Even though the Bengals are reeling, it was important to coach Zac Taylor for Burrow to return when he was ready regardless of the Bengals\u2019 record.<\/p>\n
It was also important to Burrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a football player,\u201d Burrow said. \u201cIf I get hurt, I\u2019m going to go through the rehab process and then I\u2019m going to let everyone know when I feel like I can go out there and play. I don\u2019t really know what else to say about that. I\u2019m not ever going to go to somebody and say, \u201cYeah, I\u2019m healthy, but I don\u2019t think I should go out there and play.\u2019 That doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense to me. I\u2019m not going to live my life and play this game scared of something happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though Burrow hasn\u2019t played in more than two months, he looked sharp in practice last week. The coaches worked Burrow in on the scout team as well as with the first-team offence for 11-on-11 drills where he got a better feel of the speed of the game.<\/p>\n
Burrow had a chance to play last week against the New England Patriots in a game that the Bengals lost, 26-20. Taylor decided to stick with Joe Flacco for that game, and Burrow said that he understood the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a good workout early in the week, I was feeling good,\u201d Burrow said. \u201cWednesday and Thursday practice happened, I took a lot of reps. My body was pretty sore. Not necessarily my toe. My toe feels great. The rest of my body being back out there for so long. I was confident I could get that right to play on Sunday. Zac ended up thinking it was better to wait the extra four days. I think that was a good decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following a challenging past two months, Burrow said that it\u2019s meaningful to get a chance to play on Thanksgiving on a national stage. He has clear memories as a kid of watching the Detroit Lions and quarterback Matthew Stafford.<\/p>\n
Baltimore started the season 1-5, but has won five straight to move into a tie with Pittsburgh atop the AFC North.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t like them,\u201d Burrow said. \u201cIt\u2019s a division rivalry. You got respect for them. It\u2019s intense out there. I wanted to be out there for playing on Thanksgiving. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve always wanted to do, that I pushed for in the past, and the NFL gave it to us. Then, you know, the injury happened, and thought I wasn\u2019t gonna be able to play. And then as we got closer, I felt like it was a real possibility. So that\u2019s exciting to me. It\u2019s a national stage to go out and prove yourself again after not playing for several weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bengals will also have wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase back after he served his one-game suspension for spitting on Pittsburgh’s Jalen Ramsey. However, Tee Higgins will miss Thursday night’s game because of a concussion.<\/p>\n
Chase said he was happy because \u201cI got my friend back out there\u201d when discussing Burrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know he\u2019s excited for it. There\u2019s not a better game for him to come back and show what he can do,\u201d Chase said. “I know he wanted to play (last week), but I don\u2019t think it was time. They have him another week to relax and get himself back under him. So his legs should be feeling good, his feet should be feeling good, and he should be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI \u2014 Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow confirmed on Tuesday that he\u2019ll be returning on Thanksgiving night to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-306951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}